People need to know how awesome they are for making the right choice and being your customer.

You, in turn, should be awesome, and take care of the trust they place in you responsibly.

Which  brings us to today’s stupid business mistake: spamming your users with messages they do not want.

This is one of BitDefender’s many messages. There has been a barrage of them since some “clever” individual at that company decided that it is really important to us to know that BitDefender exists and does it’s work.

In reality, since it is not possible to disable these messages (and I have been in touch with their support about this –> which creates additional workload for them!), they are actually endangering our relationship!

Attachment styles

I have been doing a deep dive into attachment styles for a longer while now.

For anyone interested in this fascinating and important topic which is pervasive throughout our romantic, business and other relationships, I highly recommend Thais Gibson’s YouTube channel about attachment styles and how to deal with them / treat them / heal them. Thais’ information has done wonders for my assertiveness, calmness, and understanding of other people and their particular behaviors. Besides, Thais is a lovely human being.

Here is a short summary:

The dismissive avoidant (DA)

They withdraw to regulate their internal balance – they avoid intimacy, and seem not to care. In reality they care (sometimes very much) but are afraid of being rejected.

The fearful avoidant (FA)

They do not have a “working” strategy, so they alternate between hot and cold – being very open, vulnerable and “in your face” with closeness, and then withdrawing massively.

The anxious-preoccupied (AA)

They constantly go towards you, and tend to “suffocate you” with their needs and fears of abandonment.

Bitdefender’s attachment style

Yes, I believe companies and their products also can have attachment styles.

In Bitdefender’s case it seems to be clingy / anxious-preoccupied (“the love addict”).

They want you to know about them. They want you to constantly remind you about them, and pay attention.

But this is a mistake.

You need to give relationships space to breathe. You need to give your partner the opportunity to miss you, and wonder about you.

You need … clarity.

You need understanding of the human psyche.

People do not like to be forcefully reminded of you all the time. There needs to be a balance.

And there needs to be a feedback mechanism, and respect for individual differences.

In the case of software, the feedback mechanism is by way of settings –> allowing you to tune the software to your particular needs.

In my case the need would be for the software to shut up and do it’s job in the background. The job it does IS important to me. And I DO believe that it is good at doing that job.

But I don’t, for the sake of God, want to be interrupted while I am focused on doing my business stuff, programming, or any other activity I use the computer for.

By stealing my focus to try and keep awareness, Bitdefender is endangering it’s relationship with me.

And this is the end of this particular business mistake.